On January 1, 2018, 30-year-old Anthony DeSean Warren was fatally shot inside a Waffle House located on Vandiver Drive in Columbia, Missouri. The incident occurred in the early morning hours of New Year's Day, around 2:00 a.m., amidst a chaotic altercation involving other patrons. Warren, a father of three who had attended Douglass High School, was present at the restaurant when a fight broke out between two men, Matthew McMillan and Le'quan Hord-Bush.
During the initial confrontation,
McMillan fired a gun, wounding Hord-Bush in the leg. As the two men struggled over the weapon, a security guard named Robert Moses intervened to break up the fight and secure the firearm. In the midst of the scuffle, another individual threw a coffee pot at the guard, striking him. Fearing for his safety, Moses discharged his weapon, inadvertently striking Warren in the chest. Warren was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Authorities conducted a thorough investigation into the sequence of events. Prosecutors determined that the security guard acted in self-defense after being assaulted with the carafe and declined to file charges against him. However, charges were brought against Matthew McMillan, whose initial act of firing a weapon and engaging in the violent disorder created the deadly situation. Under Missouri's felony murder rule, McMillan was held criminally responsible for Warren's death because it occurred during the perpetration of a felony.
In November 2019, a jury convicted McMillan of second-degree murder, first-degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon, and armed criminal action. He was subsequently sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder charge, with concurrent and consecutive terms for the other offenses. Another man, Jaylon Freelon, pleaded guilty to tampering with physical evidence for hiding the gun used by McMillan and received a five-month jail sentence. In 2021, Warren's family reached a confidential settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the security firm and the restaurant chain.
